A survey by RBC Capital Markets and ChangeWave Research in August of potential computer purchasers among US consumers indicated that 30% intend to buy a Mac desktop in the next 90 days (up from 27% in May) while 34% intend to buy a Mac laptop in the next 90 days, up from 31% in May. In other words the remarkable rise of the Mac just keeps on keeping on. In terms of consumer satisfaction, the established pattern persists; 81% of recent Apple buyers declared themselves “very satisfied” compared to 58% for Dell and 55% for Hewlett-Packard.

The iPhone Halo

Much was said about the iPod halo effect when Mac sales initially started to rise in the wake of the iPod. The connection between the two products was marginal. iTunes ran better on the Mac, but that was about it. So “halo” was probably the right metaphor. The fact that the iPod was a neat product reflected light on the Apple brand and provoked some interest in the Mac.

The iPhone halo is much bigger and to be honest, less of a halo and more of a technology overlap. The iPhone runs OS X and also runs applications that are native to the Mac; Safari, Mail, iCal and the Address Book. It also provides access to Mobile Me, which is the same service Apple sells to Mac users to enable data synchronization between multiple Macs. If the iPod helped to sell Macs then the iPhone will undoubtedly help to sell a lot more of them.

The iPhone in Business

While Apple could happily ignore the business market with the Mac, it cannot afford to do so with the iPhone – and of course it hasn’t. The simple fact is that the business market is a big buyer of high-end phones. So with the advent of the 3G iPhone, Apple added business functionality, particularly, ActiveSync support for Microsoft Exchange, but also a camera for video conferencing. The Mobile Me capability is soon expected to support comprehensive over-the-air syncing of calendars, contacts, and email.

It was not particularly surprising when the news broke that HSBC (the biggest retail bank in the world) was thinking of switching 200,000 users from the BlackBerry to the iPhone. But it turned out that HSBC was just one of over 165 Fortune 500 companies that were known to be interested in the iPhone (by virtue of their applying for developer status in Apple’s iPhone software developer program.)

Right now small businesses are buying iPhones for the sake of usability – it’s the web browsing and screen resolution that attracts them – but larger businesses are likely to wait until the iPhone has the BlackBerry-equivalent security and feature-for-feature communications. There’s also the carrier problem. For better or worse the iPhone is pinned to AT&T in the US and there are exclusive carrier deals in one or two other countries. Thisnotwithstanding, it’s only a matter of time before the iPhone is a common fixture in business.

The Contagion Effect

The iPhone halo effect may help establish the Mac as a business platform, but imho, contagion from the consumer market is a much bigger force. The truth for US companies is that many of their employees want Macs.

A recent article in Business Week, noted that Juniper Networks had launched a pilot program, allowing about 10 percent of their 6100 or so employees use Macs. If the pilot’s a success then Juniper will simply let its staff choose between the two options. Both IBM and Cisco Systems are running tests on Mac usage, so the Juniper move is not an isolated incident. Google, by the way, has let its employees choose their desktop computer for years and already supports a population of Macs.

Notice that the companies here are technology companies who are, in general, trend leaders rather than followers. You might not expect to see much action from other large corporations beyond, perhaps, an increase in Mac populations in marketing departments, but think again.  A Yankee Group survey of 250 US companies found that 87% now have some Apple computers, up from 48% two years ago. That’s serious growth. The Yankee Group estimates that Apple’s corporate market share has risen to 8-10% with 21% of firms reporting more than 50 Mac users

As a gut reaction, that figure of 8-10% seemed high to me. But the figure is more than backed-up by AMI Partners, who report Apple’s desktop market share in the medium business segment (100-999 employees) to have grown to 27% from 13% in a year, with laptops growing to 18%. In small enterprises (1-99 employees), AMI Partners put Apple’s desktop and laptop market share as 12% and 8%, respectively.

If the trend here continues, then Apple will be the dominant provider of personal business computers in the US by the end of this decade.

Switching Costs

There can be no doubt that there are switching costs involved if you swap Windows PCs (Vista or otherwise) for Macs. Anecdotal information on this suggests that such costs are lower than I would have expected. MacNewsWorld interviewed a number of companies that have made the switch, painting the following picture:

• Individual units cost more with Apple (no real surprise here)
• Exclusive PC apps are catered for by Parallels or VMware (for further extra costs, of course)
• Support costs fall
• Communications costs fall (I’m not sure why)
• Security is better
• Business interruption diminishes (particularly from viruses and other related PC phenomena like adware)
• Productivity increases

In cost terms, the MacNewsworld article suggests that it’s a wash over a 2 year period, but there’s a win in user satisfaction and productivity. I’m not sure that such anecdotal experience is a good guide, but there can be little doubt that if there were any major Mac negatives, we’d know about them by now. The fact that business take-up is happening indicates that the Mac is at least viable as a business desktop or laptop.

And if you are wondering why businesses don’t prefer to virtualize PCs rather than move to Macs, the truth is: actually that’s a big trend too with something like 28% of US companies virtualizing some PCs in some way.

Apple’s Indifference

Apple is experiencing the most dramatic increase in market share for desktop and laptop computers in the US business market, that any company has ever experienced in many years – possibly, since the market was first established by IBM. It would be easy to believe that Steve Jobs had let loose a cash-motivated take-no-prisoners army of Apple sales reps to kick doors down from Anchorage to Austin and all points East. The truth is that, at the moment there are no Apple sales reps at all knocking on doors in the business market.

Apple is assaulting the lucrative business market using majestic inaction, coupled with a complete lack of investment.

Blame it on the halo effect and the contagion effect.